Calvinist Archives - The Coming Home Network https://chnetwork.org/category/all-stories/calvinist-denominations/ A network of inquirers, converts, and reverts to the Catholic Church, as well as life-long Catholics, all on a journey of continual conversion to Jesus Christ. Thu, 16 May 2024 18:36:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 Finding Life in the Catholic Church https://chnetwork.org/story/finding-life-in-the-catholic-church/ https://chnetwork.org/story/finding-life-in-the-catholic-church/#respond Thu, 16 May 2024 18:15:08 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=story&p=114802 I was raised in a very structured Calvinist, Presbyterian home that included Sunday school and church, choir practice, handbells, youth group, Wednesday night suppers and vacation Bible school, Bible camps,

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I was raised in a very structured Calvinist, Presbyterian home that included Sunday school and church, choir practice, handbells, youth group, Wednesday night suppers and vacation Bible school, Bible camps, and daily morning and evening devotions at the meal table — religiously. We had Scripture memorization and Westminster Catechism drills (longer and shorter versions). We were on a traveling puppet evangelization team. In short, our lives revolved around church life. I always did and still do regard my childhood as charmed. But despite that sheltered upbringing, tragedy still found its way into my home.

In November of 1973, when I was eight years old, my parents had their sixth child, Phyllis. Tragically, she was stillborn because the umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck. My innocent mind struggled to understand how this could happen, and, understandably, it devastated our whole family. What happened next, though, puzzled me greatly. At the small funeral which was held in the hospital chapel for Phyllis, I witnessed doctors and nurses crying over our lost sibling. It was profound, but even at age eight, I wondered why these medical staff, some of whom supported or even may have participated in the newly legalized abortion of the unborn, could then cry for my sister. Didn’t those babies deserve the same dignity as my sister? A seed was planted that day, watered with the many tears of my mother.

Laying the Foundation

Over the years, my interest in the sciences, and biology in particular, grew. I went to college and completed my pre-med coursework, with plans to attend medical school. While in college, I had a few Catholic friends, and I attended Mass a couple of times with them. However, I was angry because I felt as though the Catholics thought they were better than me, denying me communion, so I defiantly went forward and received the Eucharist, thinking it was only bread. I pretty much forgot about that event until I started to contemplate the Catholic Faith many years later.

After college, I applied to medical school, but I wasn’t accepted the first time I applied. Because of this, I got a job at Johns Hopkins University developing protocols for pediatric leukemia treatments, while also working as a home health nurse aide. After a year, I changed gears and went to Colorado to join the full-time staff of Young Life, working as a counselor with troubled teens experiencing teen pregnancy and teen homelessness. I also enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary to study Christian Family Counseling. While there, I gained important skills in working with this demographic, as well as learning how to see and love them, rather than focusing on their crimes and shortcomings.

With the dream of medicine still in my heart, though, I returned to the east coast to conduct research on Alzheimer’s Disease at Duke University while working as a physical therapy assistant. During this time, I was attending a Presbyterian church with friends, but I met this bubbly Catholic Cajun girl who had just moved up from southern Louisiana for a critical care nursing internship. I had never met a Catholic who was so dedicated to his or her beliefs. Kathleen was not a great apologist and didn’t have complete answers to many of my questions, but she had an unwavering faith. I was fascinated with this new species of Christian.

Marriage and Medical School

I had always been able to easily counter arguments in favor of Catholicism, but Kathleen had a great uncle who was a diocesan monsignor and an uncle who was a Discalced Carmelite friar; she was formed well enough to resist the basic tenets of Protestantism. As we started to spend more time together, talking about our very different lives and beliefs, we began to fall in love. I had been an avid member of Intervarsity and Campus Crusade for Christ, so I was confident I could lead her to the “truth” of the Reformation. During this time, I applied to medical school a second time and was rejected again. I was told I needed to get a master’s degree to prove I could do graduate level work. So, I decided to return to The College of William and Mary where I had earned my undergraduate degree, while Kathleen returned to Louisiana to take care of her dying grandmother.

After her grandmother’s death, Kathleen moved back to Virginia so we could continue discerning marriage together while she lived in a nearby town, working as a nurse. I earned my master’s degree in biology, but was rejected a third time to medical school. Frustrated, I decided to actually move to the medical school in Richmond, get a research job, and stay until they got tired enough of me to admit me. I researched and published on brain receptors in rats and applied a fourth time. I finally was accepted.

After applying for and receiving all the canonical approvals from the Church, Kathleen and I were married two weeks before the start of medical school in 1994. We had gone through pre-Cana (marriage preparation) classes and agreed on most topics, such as birth control, abortion, and raising the kids Catholic. However, I still thought she would become Presbyterian. I would attend Mass with her, but I was also part of a Presbyterian church. The “mission” of our marriage was “to live the broken body of Christ and strive towards unity in His Church.”

A Pro-Life Ethic

During medical school, my commitment to pro-life medicine solidified. Throughout medical school, I had to fight against instruction that promoted supporting the relativistic convictions of patients rather than helping patients ethically navigate health care decisions. Birth control, abortion, euthanasia, neglecting abstinence counseling, and many other topics were left up to the patient alone, forcing many students to practice medicine against their consciences.

Thankfully, this changed when I moved on to my residency. Kathleen and I practiced Natural Family Planning (NFP), and when we moved to begin my residency position in Family Medicine in Mobile, AL, we became a certified Sympto-Thermal Method teaching couple. My first week in residency, I was faced with a 16-year-old girl requesting birth control from me. I had to pause and pray. I told her I could not in good conscience prescribe a harmful medicine to her, especially one that would support an immoral lifestyle. As a family practitioner, I practiced medicine with a holistic approach, caring for mind, body, and soul. Following this, I approached my director and told him that I could not prescribe birth control or make referrals for procedures such as abortion or sterilization. He respected my right of conscience, and I went on to complete my residency.

During this time, I would listen to my wife teach the Rosary and the tenets of her Catholic faith to our growing family. Our third child was born during my residency. Kathleen was pregnant with our fourth child when we moved to North Carolina, where I joined an NFP-only general practice. In this new practice, we started to have many Catholics come under our care. All of the local priests came to us, as well as the many large, homeschooling Catholic families.

When our kids reached school age, we opened King of Mercy homeschool and were able to incorporate our religious beliefs into our curriculum. Kathleen was becoming stronger in her faith, while the Methodist church I was attending was becoming more progressive and deviating from my beliefs. Our local priests asked us to teach NFP to couples in marriage preparation, and they went on to have me teach sessions in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) regarding the Church’s teachings on birth control, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, and end-of-life care. I thought it was pretty progressive of these priests to allow a non-Catholic to teach in their RCIA and pre-Cana classes.

I became more interested in Catholic ethics. During our second year in North Carolina, an influential pro-life leader was coming to town, and I was asked to host him. I spent several days with this amazing man, who was wholly dedicated to the defense of the unborn. Over the next five years, my practice partner, Dr. Danny Holland, and I offered free prenatal care and delivery services to abortion-vulnerable women. We would pray outside of the abortion clinics and set up referral services through the crisis pregnancy centers to deliver free care.

In 2006, a young woman came into the office after taking the abortion pill and immediately regretting it. She wanted to reverse the abortion. God delivered an idea to me to use progesterone to do exactly that. We had progesterone in our office because Dr. Holland was a certified NaPro Fertility Consultant, having trained at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Nebraska. She received the treatment, and her baby survived. Today, that baby is a healthy 16-year-old girl.

If I had gone straight to medical school out of college, I never would have gained the experience and wisdom to understand how protein receptors worked, to understand the plight of a teenager in pregnancy, or to see this medical dilemma with a “can do” culture-of-life medical approach.

Following this, though I was still a Protestant, I became a medical advisor for Priests for Life and started working with others on delivering this protocol to more women hoping to reverse their abortions. Ultimately, I teamed up with Dr. George Delgado, who had also discovered the reversal protocol separately, and began collecting abortion reversal stories, publishing a case series of reversal treatments in 2012. Eventually, Heartbeat International took over Dr. Delgado’s call center, and they have been able to expand the network of providers able to deliver this treatment. To date, they have over 2000 providers in 86 countries, and the Abortion Pill Reversal protocol has saved over 4000 babies, with numbers growing daily as medication abortion services expand.

Surrendering My Skepticism

Meanwhile, in the midst of this work, I was struggling with my faith, trying to sort out the truths of Kathleen’s and my seemingly opposing churches. I had debated topics with multiple priests and catechists. I had attended multiple conferences. I had been to Rome and stood two feet from Pope John Paul II while searching for answers. I led Catholic medical missions to Mexico, Ghana, and Vietnam, but I still could not bring myself to accept the Catholic Faith.

One patient whom I met on a mission particularly touched me. It was a very frustrating and unorganized day in the makeshift clinic we had put together in bush country. Hundreds of patients, some of whom had walked two days to see us, were tired and hungry and needing help. I was tired and hot and second guessing this trip. I asked God to show Himself to me and convince me that I made the right decision to come. A little boy then came in to see me. He was about eight years old, dirty and malnourished. He had scaly skin and a large wound in his head, called a Buruli ulcer. This is a chronic wound that requires surgical treatment plus special antibiotic treatment. It was eating into his skull. The village children teased him and poked him in one eye with a stick, leaving him blind in that eye. His mother had abandoned him, and his grandmother was reluctantly raising him. He was seen as a curse in this village, where many still practiced animist religions. When I asked his name, his grandmother told me, “Emmanuel” — literally, “God with us.” It struck me right in the heart. My prayer was answered, and we did all we could to cure this little boy. We offered to take him to the United States for treatment, but ultimately, we could not do it. We did get him to a regional Buruli ulcer center, but sadly, he died six months later. However, this encounter gave me a real heart for the places God meets us and helped me to understand how we are to see Jesus in each of our patients and be Jesus to them.

Despite these experiences, I was still struggling with my faith. By now, I had stopped going to Protestant services and was fully integrated into the life of our parish. In fact, people were surprised when they found out that I wasn’t Catholic.

Maybe it was pride or my inborn stubbornness, but when I really examined the root issue, it came down to the Eucharist. As a scientist and medical doctor, I could not bring myself to consider it even a possibility that bread and wine could become God — so vulnerable, so physical, so present, and so seemingly inanimate.

Continuing to wrestle with my skepticism, one day, I received a call from our priest asking me to investigate a possible Eucharistic miracle. The priest said he was looking for someone who was scientifically sound, who would honestly evaluate the Host and not be tempted to be biased based on religious belief. I accepted the task and traveled to investigate a Host that had fallen to the floor, then was placed in holy water. When the priest went to properly dispose of the Host, it had a bloody and fleshy appearance. I was fascinated and took a sample to a pathologist. The first test came back positive for the possible presence of blood, but further testing revealed that it was a bacterial growth. This type of bacteria glows very red, and the Host had become puffy with the absorption of water and bacterial growth. I delivered my report to the priest, but the event made me think very deeply about my ability to believe, especially amid my other experiences with Eucharistic miracles.

I had been to Orvieto, Italy, and studied other Eucharistic miracles, where the accidents remaining after the transubstantiation had actually conformed to the physical appearance of the Body and Blood of our Lord. I saw the stained altar cloth in Orvieto and marveled at the multiple accounts of AB blood type, the universal blood type recipient found in these Eucharistic miracles. I thought how appropriate that blood type would be, given that Christ longs to receive everyone into His kingdom. I really wanted to believe, but my data collecting brain wouldn’t let me.

All of these factors made me think about the multiple times where Christ had said we must have the faith of a child to receive the kingdom of God. I had studied Scott Hahn’s The Lamb’s Supper and even gone to several of his conferences. I decided that if there is no way possible for me to believe, then I would have never gone to investigate a possible miracle in the first place. All this time I had been waiting for God to physically change bread and wine into flesh and blood, but what God changed instead was my heart. I believe my subconscious was wanting to believe, but my conscious intellect was blocking that belief.

Another shift in my faith took place when we went on mission to Vietnam. While there, we experienced a frightening incident as we were driving in the middle of the night to the leper colonies. The priest in the car started praying the Rosary while our lives were in danger, and I joined in my desperation. This was the first Rosary I actually prayed, and I felt real comfort come over me. That we were saved from an almost certain collision and death affirmed my trust in praying for the Blessed Mother’s help, and today, the Rosary is a daily devotion for me.

Prior to this, I would always sit with our family as my wife led our seven children in the Rosary, rebelliously not wanting to “pray to Mary,” but wanting to be with my family. As a Protestant, I had confused worship and prayer, not understanding the “communion of the saints,” which not only includes those on earth but also those in heaven. When I really studied the Rosary, I realized how scriptural it was and had little argument with it. If I would be honored to have Billy Graham pray for me, why wouldn’t I want the prayers of Jesus’ own mother? I started to realize I could never love Mary more than Jesus does. When praying the Rosary and meditating on the mysteries, it started to feel like the times when I would sit with my best friend’s mother and talk about her son’s adventures. But instead of seeing my friend’s antics through the eyes of an immature friend, I was able to see those same stories through the eyes of a loving mother. That was now how I was learning to pray the Rosary, seeing the passion of our Lord through the eyes of a grieving mother, or the joy of the presentation at the temple through Mary’s eyes.

A Final Spiritual Offensive

As our children were growing older, with one in college, I knew that I needed to make a decision regarding my faith. Therefore, I told my wife that I was going to attend the upcoming RCIA classes in order to truly investigate the questions I had regarding the faith. Little did I know that my wife had enlisted multiple priests to start a novena of novenas, offering 81 Masses for the intention of my conversion. At the time I told her that I was going to start RCIA, they were already 13 Masses in, but she didn’t reveal this spiritual offensive to me until after my Confirmation on Pentecost in 2015. I remember my first Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the first sin off of my lips was that of pride. The second was receiving our Lord in the Eucharist while I was in college without recognizing that it was actually the Lord Himself. Now that I knew that specific sin was grave, it weighed heavily on my heart until I confessed it. Wow! It was such a relief, and I could finally know and acknowledge His presence in the Eucharist!

It was after this that I came into full communion with the Church through the Sacrament of Confirmation in the Traditional Latin Rite, a stark contrast from my prior faith. I chose the saint that I had only stood a few feet from as my confirmation saint: Pope St. John Paul II. Not many can say they have met their confirmation saint!

That same year, my son decided to attend college seminary and discern a call to the priesthood. He is scheduled to be ordained in June of this year (2024), and a second son will be starting his first year of major seminary in the Fall. Since the time of my reception into the Church, my faith has only grown. I truly feel that my faith is complete in the celebration of the Mass.

I am eternally grateful for the wonderful Christian upbringing of my parents and extended family. They gave me such a strong foundation in faith and Scripture. They love my wife and family very much. In fact, my wife has broken many of their stereotypes about Catholics. Even though they do not agree with us theologically, they remain continually supportive and loving, for which I am truly grateful.

I still feel like a baby Catholic and am looking forward to the spiritual journey ahead. Thinking back on the road that led me into the Church, I invite any Protestants who are considering the Catholic faith but are held back by fears to just relax and rest in the Lord. Take a deep dive into the history of our Christian faith and read the early fathers. Go and sit and attend a Mass and observe. Sit in an adoration chapel and just ask the Lord to guide you into His will.

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Dustin Quick – Former Muslim and Calvinist https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dustin-quick-former-muslim-and-calvinist/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dustin-quick-former-muslim-and-calvinist/#respond Tue, 19 Dec 2023 11:53:08 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=113879 Though baptized Catholic, the music that Dustin Quick listened to as a teenager got him exploring Muslim history and thought, first through the Black Hebrew Israelites, and then through the

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Though baptized Catholic, the music that Dustin Quick listened to as a teenager got him exploring Muslim history and thought, first through the Black Hebrew Israelites, and then through the Nation of Islam.

When Dustin came back to Christianity, it was initially to a very Calvinist form of it, that focused on the sovereignty and determinism of God. But the more he studied theology, history and scripture, the more he came to believe that the truest expression of Christianity was in the fulness of the Catholic Faith he’d left behind in his teens.

Dustin also does a podcast called Holy Smokes, where he talks theology and smokes cigars from Windsor, Ontario’s Havana Palace!

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It’s Noahble: Discovering the Catholic Faith https://chnetwork.org/story/its-noahble-discovering-the-catholic-faith/ https://chnetwork.org/story/its-noahble-discovering-the-catholic-faith/#respond Thu, 19 Jan 2023 19:52:44 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?p=111983 [On December 6, 2020, the Feast of St. Nicholas, my wife and I entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. While there is no simple way to explain how

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[On December 6, 2020, the Feast of St. Nicholas, my wife and I entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. While there is no simple way to explain how we got to that point — and I fear my attempts will be reductive as a result — the  “why” is easier to pinpoint: we, like so many before us, became convinced of the Catholic Church’s claim to authority. After being convinced, conviction quickly followed. We felt compelled to follow Jesus into His Church.]

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My own journey formally began over a decade before, during my sophomore year at Notre Dame. For it was there that a classmate kindly corrected my distorted understanding of Church teaching on the intercession of Saints. This was pivotal, though I didn’t think much of it at the time, because it set a new precedent — the first in a long series of dominos to fall. After discovering that what I thought I knew about Catholicism was not, in fact, what the Church actually teaches, I began to question other assumptions. I had been “Catholic friendly” for years, but this was the first time I began to wonder whether or not Catholicism was actually worthy of belief. I wasn’t convinced yet, but my curiosity had been piqued. It was the first of many times that Catholicism would disarm me.

An Era of Apathy

I spent the next ten years experimenting with existentialism and hedonism in various doses at different times. But even during that circus ride, my displays of self-centered humanism were offset by a lingering sense of Christian morality, no doubt a remnant of my Protestant upbringing. Brief yet powerful encounters with Catholicism were sprinkled throughout, but I didn’t give them much more than a passing glance. I was skeptical of religion in any formal sense. More seeds had been sown, just the same. 

For a variety of reasons, I knew I couldn’t fully embrace the Christianity of my childhood (I won’t cover this here), but I had no idea what should replace it. Naturally, I did everything in my power not to think about concrete matters of faith and morality, instead focusing on the abstract and the feel-good aspects. It wasn’t that I thought I knew better. Instead, I didn’t mind not knowing. I rested in my apathy for years, trying to be content avoiding scrutiny of the unpleasant questions I had left unanswered. That changed when my wife and I decided to have children. My interest in religion and philosophy rekindled; I knew I had to face old fears and revisit the questions I had abandoned.

While my wife and I were still wrestling with what to do about it all, I serendipitously became friends with a devout Catholic convert. When we first grabbed lunch, I saw him as a potential client; I think he always saw me as a potential convert. Almost immediately, he challenged and encouraged me to dive back into the investigation of Catholicism, to revisit the doubts and concerns I had voiced. Armed with an abundance of book recommendations and resources, he walked alongside me as I explored and considered the Church’s claims, always willing to answer my questions along the way. I cannot overstate the value of this relationship.

An Era of Friendship With a Friend of Jesus

During this time of intense research, an internal shift occurred. I grew almost frenzied in my search for answers. For the next eight months, I voraciously consumed everything I could handle. I still wasn’t convinced that Catholicism was worthy of belief, but to say that I was intrigued would fall short of describing the intensity of my pursuit. Somewhere between the two, perhaps. My new Catholic friend was persistent without being pushy, and his presence greatly facilitated this theological process. Our friendship, and the many discussions it produced, proved pivotal to my intellectual journey. It’s hard to overemphasize the power of timing — and that certainly played a part here — but it was more than that. By getting to know him, I encountered a Catholic conversion on display. In witnessing the way the Church and her holy Mysteries had changed his life, I saw a glimpse of what my future could hold.

As a result of continual study, reflection, and prayer, my trek to Rome rapidly accelerated during the year leading up to our Confirmation. In addition to regular conversations with my Catholic friend, I started having weekly phone conversations with a brilliant Thomist priest and philosopher who was capable of navigating even the most nuanced of concerns. He gave me satisfying answers and reasonable explanations, gently but thoroughly correcting my remaining misunderstandings. In many ways, he finished by convincing me.

A Spoonful of Apologetics Helps “Authority” Go Down

A final conflict emerged: my willingness to submit to Church authority. The mind may have been convinced, but the heart did not want to be convicted. When relegated to the hypothetical, investigating Catholicism was thrilling because it was safe. After I realized I was becoming convinced — not only that the Church taught some truth, but that the Church embodied the fullness of Truth itself — the stakes soared. If I wasn’t careful, I might actually have to change my life. 

Enthusiasm turned to apprehension; I dove back into my studies with a different goal in mind: relief from the nagging sense of obligation festering inside me. I sought out the best Protestant, Orthodox, and secular counterarguments I could find, desperate to disprove the position I was starting to entertain. I revisited the history of the Reformation. I read (and reread) Martin Luther’s and John Calvin’s objections in their own words. I discussed my findings with honest, well-read Protestant friends and family members. I considered modern secular criticisms. I mulled over recent scandals. I actively tried to dissuade myself.

Fortunately, my plan backfired. I failed in the best possible sense. Instead of alleviating conviction, I’d effectively removed all lingering doubt — all while bolstering my ability to defend the Catholic faith against myriad objections. This final act of Protestant rebellion ended up becoming my Catholic pièce de résistance. I think God appreciates irony. Across the Tiber I would go. 

When I finally embraced the Church’s claims, a deep sense of admiration replaced my skepticism. Newfound adoration fueled my already insatiable appetite for the Catholic faith, spurring my desire to consume even more information. The conviction I had been feeling paled in comparison to the sense of captivation that supplanted it. There were no more dragons guarding the treasure.

You might be wondering about my wife: where was she during all this? Here’s the short answer: By God’s grace, despite our wildly different start dates and trajectories, she and I had become convinced within a couple of months of each other. We were formally catechized and confirmed at the same time. My friend was my sponsor; our priest (and catechist) was hers. It was the beautiful culmination of our journey to Rome — and the start of our new life as Catholics.

Before going further, I want to emphasize that I don’t see my becoming Catholic as standing in conflict with my Protestant background. It’s the fulfillment. Similarly, I don’t accuse orthodox Protestants of embracing a corrupt form of Christianity, but rather an incomplete version of it. I happily recognize the essential role my classical Protestant upbringing played in my journey to the Catholic Church — especially the way I was taught to love Jesus, seek Truth and follow God’s Word — and I dearly love and appreciate my Protestant family and friends. We’re all looking at the same portrait, but the Protestant copy misses certain details.

My prayer is for all of us to be reunited in the Church. I want Catholic and Orthodox and Protestant Christians alike to be one as the Father and Son are one, a monolithic representation of what Christ and His Church are meant to be, so that we might set the world ablaze with His Love. 

I grew up believing many lies about Catholicism and, while there are indeed big differences to this day, I’ve learned they are rarely as they seem. To that end, I will outline the fundamental changes in my thinking to highlight how my understanding of Catholic doctrine shifted –– or rather, how I came to understand Catholic doctrine in the first place.

Checkmate

I had to undergo several significant changes of mind (and heart) before I could even think of becoming Catholic. I’d like to highlight three pillars as foundational to my being convinced of the credibility of Catholic claims. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is indicative of the nature of my shift in understanding. As such, it is a good starting point for further investigation. Prior to even reaching these pillars, however, I had to have many misconceptions about Catholicism cleared up.

Pillar #1

Perhaps most importantly, I became convinced that our Lord established a visible church as well as an invisible church, one which He commanded to remain in unity (John 17:21); that He made Peter and the apostles the earthly overseers of this Church (Matthew 16:18–19; Acts 15:7), starting a line of succession that remains intact in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic traditions.

Pillar #2

Leaning on the first pillar, I became convinced that the Holy Spirit guided and preserved the deposit of faith, from the early councils to today, by working through this visible Church which has been passed on and preserved in written as well as oral tradition (i.e., by Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition). When Christ established the Church, led by the Apostles, He gave it authority to teach, interpret, and preserve the faith, by God’s grace and through the Holy Spirit’s divine protection (not of their own power, to be sure): the determination of the New Testament canon and the ecumenical creeds are prime examples of this protection in action.

Pillar #3

I became convinced that the Catholic Church has always been the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” in a visible sense, and that it contains the fullness of Truth to this day. (Note that this does not suggest exclusive access.)

Much to my surprise, I had discovered — or should I say “realized”? — that the pillars outlined above, along with the related points they illuminate, were supported by Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition alike.

In my final throes of Protestantism, when seeking the best defenses against Catholicism that I could find, I dove into the work of the early Reformers. I was shocked to find that John Calvin and Martin Luther both believed in the perpetual virginity of our Blessed Mother Mary. As someone who grew up as a Calvinist, this gave me pause: for such teaching is almost altogether absent from their Protestant descendants. The more I studied the early Reformers, the more I realized that they clung to many beliefs we now call distinctly (or at least predominantly) Catholic and/or Eastern Orthodox in essence –– from the perpetual virginity to the scope of conciliar authority to the emphasis on the Eucharist. I don’t think either of the two great Reformers would look kindly on the modern state of their respective traditions.

On the other side of the world was something equally perplexing to consider: Orthodox Christians. In contrast to our Protestant friends, the Orthodox had maintained a surprisingly similar, dare I say Catholic, expression of Christianity, both in terms of theology and practice. The parallel existence of the Eastern Churches proved to be additional support for the Catholic claims I was investigating, particularly with respect to the sacraments and apostolic succession. Setting aside disagreements about the pope, to my Protestant mind, the similarities between Catholic and Orthodox in terms of what it actually means to live as a Christian far outweighed any nuanced theological arguments that remained. I had grown up believing that many of the standard-issue Catholic beliefs were papal innovations, not apostolic Tradition. To find out that the Orthodox held the Blessed Virgin in comparable esteem was particularly persuasive to me when determining whether or not it was, in fact, part of the deposit of faith.

The more I dug, the more I wondered how the Catholic Church, with all its blatant shortcomings and abject failures, could remain intact for 2,000+ years… if it weren’t being preserved by God’s hand. What was the essential characteristic that distinguished it? Authority. Not the human kind, but divine authority.

My journey had come full circle. The initial difficulty, that of authority, now became a most necessary thing for unity and for the kind of longevity required for the Church that stands until the end of time.

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Garrett Cichowitz – Former Presbyterian and Anglican https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/garrett-cichowitz-former-presbyterian-and-anglican/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/garrett-cichowitz-former-presbyterian-and-anglican/#respond Tue, 22 Nov 2022 10:46:03 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=111667 Garrett Cichowitz grew up in nondenominational churches, but when going to Grove City College, he became attracted to Reformed theology. He met a Catholic friend who began to break some

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Garrett Cichowitz grew up in nondenominational churches, but when going to Grove City College, he became attracted to Reformed theology. He met a Catholic friend who began to break some of his stereotypes about Catholicism, but he wasn’t ready to make the leap into the Church. While teaching in a classical Christian high school, he felt more and more drawn to the Catholic Church but was worried about the impact it would have on his teaching job. Garrett shares how he worked through those issues practically, theologically, and spiritually on his way into the Catholic Church.

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Dr. John Bergsma – Former Christian Reformed Church Minister https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dr-john-bergsma-former-christian-reformed-church-minister/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dr-john-bergsma-former-christian-reformed-church-minister/#respond Tue, 04 Aug 2020 15:41:31 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=105866 Dr. John Bergsma returns to the program for the first time since 2008 to share updates to his journey from being the son of a Christian Reformed Church Navy chaplain

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Dr. John Bergsma returns to the program for the first time since 2008 to share updates to his journey from being the son of a Christian Reformed Church Navy chaplain to becoming an acclaimed Catholic Bible scholar. He shares how questions of Christian unity, the interpretation of Scripture, and the sacraments played into his family’s entry into the Catholic Church, and discusses how the Bible makes more sense to him now as a Catholic than it did even when he was a Reformed pastor who held to the doctrine of sola Scriptura.

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Dr. Brian Besong – Former Baptist and Presbyterian https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dr-brian-besong-former-baptist-and-presbyterian/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dr-brian-besong-former-baptist-and-presbyterian/#respond Tue, 21 Jul 2020 11:40:18 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=105815 Dr. Brian Besong returns to the program for the first time since 2012 to discuss his journey through the Baptist and Reformed traditions to the Catholic Church. He talks about

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Dr. Brian Besong returns to the program for the first time since 2012 to discuss his journey through the Baptist and Reformed traditions to the Catholic Church. He talks about the reasons he found Calvinism so compelling at first, and the life experiences that caused his Calvinism to unravel. He also shares how philosophy understood wrongly can lead the soul away from God, but philosophy understood rightly can lead the soul toward God.

Dr. Besong is co-editor of Faith and Reason: Philosophers Explain Their Turn to Catholicism.

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Fr. Bart Stevens, Former Assemblies of God and Episcopal Priest https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/fr-bart-stevens-former-assemblies-of-god-and-episcopal-priest/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/fr-bart-stevens-former-assemblies-of-god-and-episcopal-priest/#respond Tue, 20 Aug 2019 11:08:53 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=58047 Fr. Bart Stevens grew up in Montana, and had a radical conversion to Christ as a teenager attending an Assemblies of God youth group. When he was exposed to the

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Fr. Bart Stevens grew up in Montana, and had a radical conversion to Christ as a teenager attending an Assemblies of God youth group. When he was exposed to the Christian intellectual tradition at Wheaton College, he became a 5-point Calvinist, and when he went on to seminary studies at Gordon-Conwell, he fell in love with liturgy. After being ordained as an Episcopal priest, he finally realized that his love for personal prayer, intellectual rigor, and meaningful liturgy could all be fulfilled in the Catholic Church. Fr. Bart was eventually ordained a Catholic priest under the Pastoral Provision.

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The Unexpected Journey https://chnetwork.org/story/the-unexpected-journey/ https://chnetwork.org/story/the-unexpected-journey/#respond Tue, 28 May 2019 14:22:30 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=story&p=55658 We often think of miracles as a physical demonstration of the supernatural, such as bodily healing, but, personally, I think for a die-hard fundamentalist Protestant to make his way into

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We often think of miracles as a physical demonstration of the supernatural, such as bodily healing, but, personally, I think for a die-hard fundamentalist Protestant to make his way into the Catholic Church is equally miraculous. Thank God for His generous gift of grace!

I am from New Hampshire, born into a faithful Fundamental Baptist family. From my first week in this world, I attended church with my family whenever the doors were open. While my childhood was troubled in many ways, I give thanks to God for the constant exposure to Scripture during those early, formative years of my life. Reading and memorizing Scripture were strongly encouraged — things for which I am very grateful and that I hope to pass on to my children as a wonderful habit to strengthen the Christian in his walk.

When I was twelve years old, I remember standing up in church and pledging before God and the congregation to serve God with my life; however, at the time I didn’t know in what capacity. I was soon to get some direction as to “how” when we moved to El Paso, Texas. I was fourteen at the time. I absolutely fell in love with the Hispanic culture, to which I had never been exposed, since I am from the northeastern corner of the United States. Though we only stayed there a short time, my heart had been touched. Even as a teenager, I immersed myself in the language and study of the culture.

When I graduated, I went to what was, perhaps, the most “Fundamentalist” of the Fundamental Baptist colleges, Fairhaven Baptist College in Chesterton, Indiana. I wanted to study to be an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher and through that means bring the Gospel to the Hispanic people, who in my mind were blinded by the Catholic Church. I studied Spanish and English and obtained my degree as a teacher.

From there, I found a teaching position at a Fundamental Baptist school in northern California. I lived on the premises and completely immersed myself in the life of the school and the church. Then, during the economic crisis of 2008, the school had to close. I prayed for what to do next.

God led me to work as a missionary teacher in Tijuana, Mexico. Once again, I was completely immersed into the life of the church and Christian school. I lived directly on campus, located on the outskirts of Tijuana. It included a church, Christian school, orphanage, and Bible Institute. I look back to this time of my life with extreme fondness and as a formative period in my Christian walk. It was there that I really learned what it meant to completely depend on God’s provision by faith.

It was also there where I met my future husband, José Plascencia. He had grown up in a culturally Catholic home but had a dramatic conversion experience when he was nineteen. He had then started attending a Baptist church with his neighbor friend, and out of a desire to serve God full-time, he came to the mission, which is where I met him two years later. He worked there as the director of the Bible Institute. We both lived there and worked 24/7. I am so deeply grateful to God for bringing me all the way from the northeast corner of the United States to the opposite corner and across the border so I could meet this wonderful man, whose sole purpose in life was to follow God, no matter what. Of course, at the time, I had no idea what that would entail!

We got married two years after we met; then we stayed on there at the mission in Tijuana for another year, after which God started moving us in another direction.

We were sent by our Fundamental Baptist church in Tijuana to plant a Hispanic church in downtown San Diego. We started the church plant in the spring of 2011. Starting a church entailed spending a lot of time knocking on doors and passing out tracts. Through the financial support of another church congregation, we were able to rent and meet at the local public school on Sundays. Around the same time, we were expecting our first child. Our home was situated about a block from that public school. We thought this was what we were going to be doing the rest of our lives — right there in downtown San Diego.

In hindsight, I can see that it was there that our journey commenced, though at the time I still had no idea what was coming. My husband has always been an avid reader, and through studying on his own, he began to have questions about the role of God’s sovereignty in man’s salvation and the significance of “predestination” from the Bible. However, “predestination” and “God’s sovereignty” were considered Calvinistic doctrines, not something that Fundamentalist Baptists believed. He was on the verge of officially being ordained as a Fundamentalist Baptist pastor and decided he must go to our sending church’s pastor with his questions. Yet he was simply met with “that’s just not what we believe” and “you should stop asking questions” as answers. As Calvinistic leaning beliefs were not accepted by our denomination, and José had started adopting many of those beliefs, in the end, after his six years of full-time ministry work with that pastor and three years on my part, we were simply kicked out — privately and by one individual, that pastor.

We continued having services in our house for a couple months, but we felt that it just wasn’t right to not have accountability to someone. At the same time, we were already expecting our second child. After praying, and with much sadness, we decided to leave the work in San Diego and move to northern California to be with family and to “regroup” after the terrible blow of being rejected by our sending church. It was as if the very floor underneath us had been ripped out! Where did we belong?

Then began the agonizing time of depression and lostness. Our dreams of planting a church and being totally involved in it for the rest of our lives were dashed. We knew that we didn’t belong to the Fundamental Baptist group any more. Our beliefs on various issues simply didn’t line up. We were starting to see an emphasis on outward rules and an over-emphasis on tithing and other extra offerings. We didn’t believe in the system of dispensationalism, including the so-called “rapture,” that was strongly upheld by the Fundamental Baptists. We also didn’t believe that the King James Version of the Bible was the only inspired ver- sion. And, of course, we were starting to gain interest in the Reformed doctrines of predestination.

How could this happen to us when all we wanted was to serve God? What had we done wrong? We didn’t understand because, before, everything had been so certain and so clear — we knew exactly who we were and what we were going to do. Now nothing seemed certain. We didn’t know where we belonged. Of course, God was in control all along, and He was leading us in a certain direction, but at that stage of our journey, we really felt lost, as if we were simply wandering.

We attended our family’s church in northern California for the next two years, which was officially a Fundamental Baptist church but not as radical as the branch to which we had belonged in Mexico. During those two years, we focused on our new and growing family and really weren’t heavily involved in church activities. For me, that was a really difficult adjustment! The previous ten years of my life had been spent living on church grounds and pouring myself into church work. I even felt like I just wasn’t serving God as I should. It wasn’t until much later into our journey that I learned of the Catholic teaching that marriage was a vocation and family life a beautiful way to grow in holiness.

While we stayed in our family church, we began looking to see where we might belong — what church fit in with our beliefs. We leaned toward Reformed Baptist teachings; however, I can still remember my husband putting on debates between differing Protestant groups and realizing that both sides had verses from the Bible to support their arguments. Listening to those debates really left me even more confused. How could two different Protestant groups (Calvinist and Arminian, for example) present their arguments and both of them have verses to seemingly support their side? Yet, the sides disagreed.

Then one day, Catholicism made a tiny blip on the radar. We came across the conversion testimony of Eduardo Verástegui on the EWTN program Nuestra Fe en Vivo. I’m not even sure how that video showed up on YouTube. We watched it spellbound! Eduardo recounted his story of how he had been totally dedicated to the sinful life of a Hollywood actor, which left him feeling completely empty. His English teacher, who happened to be a faithful Catholic, didn’t pull any punches. He told him of his need to turn his life around. By God’s grace, he did exactly that. There was no doubt in my mind that he had had a genuine conversion — but he became Catholic! How could that be possible? I shrugged it off as a single-case scenario and thought, Well, I suppose there are a few Catholics out there who are real Christians.

Not long afterwards, my husband rediscovered The Journey Home programs on YouTube. He recognized them, having seen a few when he was a teenager on the TV programs locally dubbed in Spanish in Tijuana. Watching the conversion stories was, to me, like opening the door to a whole world I didn’t even know existed. When I first started watching them, I have to be honest and say that I thought, Those Catholics are ridiculous! They have to put on conversion stories to try to persuade people to become Catholic!

But something did happen from watching those first conversion stories. It put an intense, burning desire in us both to prove that the Catholic Church was wrong! And by intense, I mean it was pretty much the only thing that occupied our thoughts for several months. In the beginning, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake to prove the Catholics wrong. In my mind, Catholics didn’t believe the Bible, and it was quite possible the Pope was the Antichrist. My husband would put on debates between Protestants and Catholics. I would rarely sit down and watch them; however, I would still be listening to them as I worked about the house. I thought the Catholic side wouldn’t even have a case and was unpleasantly surprised to find that, as much as I wanted the Protestant to win, often the Catholic arguments were more convincing.

One by one, and often without my even realizing it, my objections fell. I had never in my life entered a Catholic church. I had never had any Catholic friends, so all I really knew of the Catholic Church is what I had been taught in my Fundamentalist Baptist upbringing. Needless to say, I had several misconceptions about Catholic beliefs — things I thought Catholics believed but that they actually don’t believe.

Perhaps the greatest misconception was that Catholics believe in salvation by works. The Catechism states, “Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1945). I came to realize that “salvation by works” was a misleading and far too simplistic way of explaining the Catholic belief. Catholics believe that salvation can only be given through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and that God gives you grace to live out your Christian life. In my upbringing, I had been taught that you pray to ask Jesus into your heart, and that was it — you were saved forever. But I began to realize that such a teaching could only be supported by taking some verses out of context, rather than considering the New Testament as a whole. Under that premise, I couldn’t explain passages like Philippians 2:12, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” or James chapter 2, particularly verse 24, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” I had never noticed that verse before! Without my realization, my paradigm began to shift ever so slowly. Many things that I had been taught were true, but there was also another facet to be added to make them more complete, more rich! I found that to be true about numerous things. Salvation was not only given by an initial gift of grace, as I already believed, but it was also a continuing process made possible by God’s grace. Jesus’ teachings are filled with this concept (Matthew 10:22, 24:13; Mark 13:13) As the Catechism states in paragraph 1949, “Man stands in need of salvation from God. Divine help comes to him in Christ through the law that guides him and the grace that sustains him.” I was amazed how the Catholic teaching on salvation made room for the Bible passages I had been uncomfortable trying to explain before. Everything just fit together!

The second barrier to fall was that of the Eucharist. This perhaps was the easiest one for me and the one that most opened me up to the idea that the Catholic Church just might be onto something. The “Lord’s Supper,” as I used to refer to it, had never been a topic of study for me. As soon as I began to study it, I was amazed at how clearly it was presented in Scripture. I looked to see where it was described as “merely a symbol” and simply couldn’t find it! However, there were two passages that really struck me as purely “Catholic.” The first was John 6, particularly verses 51–56, where at the end, it states, “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” Jesus’ followers were revolted at the thought of “eating his flesh” and turned from following Him. Jesus never reprimanded them for taking Him literally, as He had in other instances — because He was speaking literally! The other passage was actually a passage I had heard hundreds of times but hadn’t meditated upon very deeply, 1 Corinthians 11:27–30, which includes, “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.” How could a “symbol” cause such severe consequences? It did seem logical, however, that a physical thing such as the Real Presence could cause a physical consequence such as sickness or death when received incorrectly.

The drop that made the cup overflow came when I was introduced by my husband to what the earliest Christians from the very first century after Christ had to say about the Eucharist: “They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, paragraph 6, circa ad 80–110). How Catholic does that entire quote from the very first century sound! I was blown away by reading these early Christians and learning that it was possible to experience the Christian life just as they described in their writing — not in my Baptist church, as I had always imagined we were closest to the New Testament Christians, but in the Catholic Church! Thus, one by one, my objections vanished.

As I began understanding Catholic teachings, the Bible, which I had read so many times and from which I had memorized so many passages, changed from two dimensional (which was nice) to three dimensional (which was amazing!). The continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and how Catholic teaching brings it all together, made the Bible so new and fresh to me!

In a last-ditch effort to remain Baptist, we moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where my husband entered the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to better prepare him to become a pastor. There, certainly, he would learn from the best minds, and all doubts would be resolved. But oh, the irony! I can envision God looking down from heaven grinning. In an effort to escape Catholicism, and without our being aware of it, we had run right into the heart of a very rich Catholic heritage. Louisville has a lot of Catholics, beautiful, old Catholic churches, and a deep Catholic history! Seminary had the opposite effect from what my husband had imagined. He saw how the professors frequently had differing opinions on various topics and an incomplete understanding of Catholicism and were often unable to answer his questions.

I have to admit, my biggest struggle was not understanding all the intellectual arguments to support the Catholic Faith; I actually was intellectually persuaded long before I became Catholic. There were two walls that were very difficult for me to overcome. The first was moving all of that “head” understanding to the heart. The second very difficult wall was my feeling of a loss of identity.

Having already been persuaded intellectually, I decided to enter RCIA (St. Martin of Tours parish, Louisville, KY) in September 2016, although not necessarily with the end of becoming Catholic in mind. At that point, my husband was already far ahead of me, ready to return to the Catholicism of his youth. He only needed to retrieve his Confirmation certificate and receive the Sacrament of Penance to be returned to full communion since he had already received the sacraments of initiation as a child. Even though he was ready, he did wait for me a bit longer so that he could return to full communion close to the time that I was received into the Church. Even though I had entered RCIA, I was still not ready. I vividly remember thinking, How do I get my heart to grasp all that I’ve understood in my head? I felt frustrated! A month later, we went on a Coming Home Network retreat in Biddeford, Maine. That was really my first encounter with Catholics. It was wonderful to meet Catholics who were dedicated to their faith. While I was still struggling with a lot of things during that time, I can look back on that week as being really influential in my journey.

Having never been in a Catholic atmosphere before, with Mass every day and adoration every evening, I was overwhelmed. I remember even expressing out loud, “I just want to sing ‘Victory in Jesus.’” I think what struck me most from that retreat was listening to the testimonies of each person and how they came to the Church. Almost everybody shared their heartbreak of a loss of family and friends, many even weeping. But everyone, without exception, said they wouldn’t change it for anything in the world! I determined I had to be one hundred percent sure that this was the right thing to do because it was certain that I would also experience the heartbreak of loss of relationships, and it had to be justified. I looked around at all the faces in the retreat and deeply desired to have in my heart the love for the Catholic Church that they had. I just didn’t know how to get it!

There was one unexpected help in this great difficulty: praying the Rosary. When I got home, I decided to try the Rosary. The first time I prayed it, I was skeptical. I thought, To say the same thing fifty times is ridiculous. I must say that, due to my attitude, I got nothing out of it. I contacted a friend from the retreat and asked for advice. She sent me a link to a YouTube page that included videos depicting the five mysteries, meant to be played while praying the decade. I tried it again. This time, the whole thing started working for me. The video kept my mind meditating on each mystery as I prayed the decades. Wow, what an experience! I couldn’t even get through the Rosary without crying. Meditating on the Mysteries allowed me to see the Gospel in a profound light I hadn’t really considered before. As a Baptist, I didn’t really know the value of meditative prayer … what a joy- ous discovery! In this way, I began to understand Catholicism with my heart, as I had so much desired!

The second wall, equally difficult to overcome, was the loss of identity. I had been a Fundamental Baptist all my life. I went to Bible college. I had lived on church property for many years, being completely involved seven days a week. Being a Baptist wasn’t just a part of my life; it was my life; it was who I was! What was I going to do as a Catholic?


Being a Baptist wasn’t just a part of my life; it was my life; it was who I was! What was I going to do as a Catholic?
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So many things were strange and different. I knew only a handful of Catholics. This wall was not quickly resolved. It requires a lot of patience to wait for the timing of finding your new identity as a Catholic. In fact, I have found a specific purpose, my true identity as a Catholic, only recently.

I do have to say, however, that something did help me out significantly. This was perhaps the last thing that really persuaded me that Catholicism was where I ought to be: reading and learning about the lives of the saints. For me, the saints were a whole new thing. I didn’t know anything about them. When I began reading books and watching documentaries on the lives of various saints, I was moved to the core. So many people, throughout all the centuries of Christianity, dedicated their entire lives to God, some in service to others and some giving up their lives as martyrs. These Catholic saints produced rich and profound writings only possible through a close walk with God. It gave me a deep desire to do the same in some way. As a Catholic, I could go back to any century and find other Catholics, saints who lived out their faith. That was something I could never have done as a Fundamentalist.

How could a Church teaching a “wrong doctrine” produce such profound faith and charity as seen in the saints? That was it! I was getting close to the end of RCIA before I became completely convinced that the Catholic Church was where I needed to be. The testimony of the saints was the last thing that persuaded me.

José made his way back into full communion a few weeks before I entered the Church at the Easter Vigil, 2017. A couple of months later, our two daughters were baptized. Now I can finally say, along with those converts I met at the retreat, that, yes, there is the pain of a loss of friends and family, the indifference, the distancing, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I have found that “pearl of great price” (Matthew 13:46) in the richness of the Catholic Faith!

We have now moved back to Tijuana. Our journey moved us not only spiritually, but also physically. God literally moved us all over the country to find His truth and in the end brought us back to the exact city where we started. He has now given us a mis- sion. One of the reasons why we were able to make our journey was due to the abundant resources for converts in English; however, these resources are mostly not available in Spanish. There are not many Spanish-speaking apologists. We have started working towards an apologetic apostolate in Spanish to not only teach the uncatechized Catholics, of which there are many, but also to reach out to ex-Catholics who have become Protestants. Our goal is to be available to answer questions and to present the truth of Catholicism via social media and to go out and evangelize here in our community. My husband named it “La Fe de la Iglesia” (teaching and defending “The Faith of the Church”). We have started a YouTube channel and Facebook page named La Fe de la Iglesia, as well as a website, catolicismo.tv. We have included content such as conversion stories, teachings, questions and answers, and have an emphasis on personally corresponding with people who are searching for truth. We humbly ask for your prayers to be used by God to spread the beauty of the Catholic Faith in Spanish.

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Dr. David Anders – Former Presbyterian https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dr-david-anders-former-presbyterian/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/dr-david-anders-former-presbyterian/#respond Thu, 17 Jan 2019 21:01:45 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=51168 Dr. David Anders grew up in the Reformed tradition, just down the street from EWTN’s studios in Birmingham. As he continued to explore questions of faith, he began to doubt

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Dr. David Anders grew up in the Reformed tradition, just down the street from EWTN’s studios in Birmingham. As he continued to explore questions of faith, he began to doubt the view of Christian history he’d been given, and wanted to know more about how justification worked. The more he explored that, the more he felt dissatisfied with Martin Luther’s view on salvation, grace, and even free will. The questions he kept asking led him not away from Christianity, but toward the Catholic Church.

Dr. David Anders’ latest book is The Catholic Church Saved My Marriage.

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Mike Peters – Former Nondenominational Christian https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/mike-peters-former-nondenominational-christian/ https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/mike-peters-former-nondenominational-christian/#respond Tue, 05 Jun 2018 11:57:57 +0000 https://chnetwork.org/?post_type=journey-home&p=49097 Mike Peters was raised Episcopalian, but after a radical encounter with Jesus as a young man, he left behind what he thought of as “dead,” ritualistic religion for a vibrant

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Mike Peters was raised Episcopalian, but after a radical encounter with Jesus as a young man, he left behind what he thought of as “dead,” ritualistic religion for a vibrant life of faith.  He went into campus ministry, eventually doing so full-time. When he was in seminary, his theology became more and more Calvinistic, and yet he was troubled by the implications of Calvinism on the theology of mission; if God chose His elect without their consent, what was the point of preaching the Gospel to the nations?  Mike’s hunger for truth and desire to follow Jesus eventually led him to study the history, liturgy and theology of the Catholic Church.

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